The use of invasive medical devices, such as catheters and laparoscopes in order to gain access into interior regions or volumes within the body for performing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures is well known. In such procedures, it is important for a physician or technician to be able to precisely position the device, including various functional elements located on the device, within the body in order to make contact with a desired body tissue location.
In order to accurately position the device, it is desirable that the shape or configuration of the particular volume be determined, and registered in a known three-dimensional coordinate system, as well as the location or locations of sites within the volume identified for treatment. Current techniques, however, are incapable of determining and registering the true shape and configuration, as well as the dynamic movement of a volume, or at the least at a resolution high enough to provide a physician a comfortable understanding of the volume. Many current techniques use fluoroscopy to generate an image of the target volume. These devices only provide two-dimensional information about the volume, however, rather than the more preferred three-dimensional information. The result is that physicians using fluoroscopy to obtain an image of the volume within which a medical device is guided must rely partly on their own general knowledge of anatomy to compensate for the two-dimensional image obtained by the fluoroscope. In addition, not only do these device not give the physician a three-dimensional view of the volume, but also do not give an understanding of possible obstacles or movements within the volume itself, such as the opening and closing of valves, atrio-septal defects, atrio-septal defect closure plugs, and the like.
Some technologies are capable of generating and registered three-dimensional images, but these devices are typically incapable of producing a high resolution image of the interior space of the volume, since they operate from outside of the body, or from a location outside of the target volume itself, in the case of transthoracic or transesophageal echography used to image the heart.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for guiding a medical device that are able to generate higher resolution images of the target volume such that a physician is able to compensate for any obstructions or physical landmarks within the volume itself.